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A place to discuss military, social and economic history, and historic relations between civilisations and cultures around the world.enSun, 15 Sep 2019 12:59:39 GMTvBulletin60https://www.eupedia.com/forum/images/misc/rss.pnghttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/
Cause(s) of the Minoan Collapse?https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39236-Cause(s)-of-the-Minoan-Collapse?goto=newpost
Sat, 14 Sep 2019 15:19:29 GMTThis article claims certain tablets pinpoint the cause.https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/...tion-1.7809371

Personally, this reads to me like a weakened civilization indeed taken over by invaders, even if they didn't exterminate all the men.

The mystery of what happened to the Minoan civilization has tormented archaeologists for over a century, and the tale has now taken a new twist. Nothing happened to them, say archaeologists who have been excavating the island of Crete for over thirty years.This extraordinary people, who produced palatial architecture unparalleled in the Aegean region at the time, were not immolated by the volcanic eruption of Thera as once thought, crushed by earthquake, or squashed by Mycenaean Greece as more recently supposed. Rather, the Minoans, who had for centuries wielded influence throughout the Aegean, did experience earthquakes that rattled them, were indeed badly weakened by the volcanic blast from Thera on the nearby island of Santorini, and did experience the unamiable attentions of the mainland Greeks.But although the two cultures appear to have struggled, over time the elite elements of both became virtually indistinguishable, after 1450 B.C.E., if not earlier. Minoan influence as such would recede and the by-then-Mycenaeanised islanders would soldier on until the great collapse of civilization around the Mediterranean Basin, around 1,200 B.C.E."
]]>Angelahttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39236-Cause(s)-of-the-Minoan-CollapseVictims of Mongols in Medieval Mass Grave identifiedhttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39210-Victims-of-Mongols-in-Medieval-Mass-Grave-identified?goto=newpost
Tue, 10 Sep 2019 17:06:44 GMTSee:https://www.archaeology.org/news/798...medieval-grave

"MOSCOW, RUSSIA—DNA analysis has revealed that two women and a young man whose remains were recovered from a medieval mass grave in northwestern Russia were a 55-year-old grandmother, her 30-to-40-year-old daughter, and her grandson, who was about 20, according to a Live Science report. The grave is one of nine burial pits found in Yaroslavl, a city located at the confluence of the Volga and Kotorosl Rivers, where more than 300 massacred residents were interred after an attack by Mongol soldiers under the command of Batu Khan in A.D. 1238. A team of scientists from the Institute of Archaeology at the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology decided to test these three skeletons, discovered at the site of what may have been a wealthy estate burned down during the attack, because they shared certain skull features, in addition to signs of spina bifida—a hereditary birth defect that affects the spinal cord. Asya Engovatova, director of excavations at Yaroslavi, said the three individuals also suffered from more advanced tooth decay than many of the other remains found in the city’s burial pits, indicating they may have eaten more honey and sugar, befitting their status. A fourth individual who was buried in a nearby grave may have also been a maternal relative, she added. "

To have lived with spina bifida in those days, even if it was a relatively mild form, I would think they would have had to have been wealthy.
]]>Angelahttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39210-Victims-of-Mongols-in-Medieval-Mass-Grave-identifiedAncient Mesopotamia Speakshttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39198-Ancient-Mesopotamia-Speaks?goto=newpost
Sat, 07 Sep 2019 13:29:22 GMTExhibit at the Peabody Museum. Fascinating stuff.

"On view until June 2020, the “Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks” exhibit at the Yale Peabody Museum ofNatural History showcases the relics of a civilization that was the birthplace of crucial aspects of the modern world — writing, political institutions and urban culture."

"The exhibit contains hymns composed by the priestess Enhedu-anna, who is the earliest known recorded author in world history, according to Frahm. It also includes the oldest cookbook in the world, a tablet that accurately calculates the square root of two to eight decimal places, a recreation of the Code of Hammurabi and several clay tablets and seals that display cuneiform writing. "

"The objects on view reveal that in ancient Mesopotamia, parents had lullabies for children, kings constructed untrue accounts of their own greatness, students were distracted in school, people tried to evade taxes."
]]>Angelahttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39198-Ancient-Mesopotamia-SpeaksAncient Greeks used machines for lifting stones earlier than believedhttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39180-Ancient-Greeks-used-machines-for-lifting-stones-earlier-than-believed?goto=newpost
Thu, 05 Sep 2019 16:12:37 GMTSee:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...ved-180973017/

"rchaeologists have long believed that the forerunners of the cranes that now dot the skylines of cities across the globe were invented by Greek engineers around 515 B.C. But a new study suggests that earlier versions of the lifting machines were being used on the Greek peninsula 150 years earlier.The evidence comes from temples at the ancient cities of Isthmia and Corinth dating from 700 to 650 B.C. The 440- to 880-pound blocks used to construct the temples have unusual twin grooves running along the bottoms of the stones. Researchers have argued about the purpose of the grooves for decades. That's why architecture professor Alessandro Pierattini of the University of Notre Dame decided to take a closer look.“Scholars have proposed two alternative interpretations for these grooves: they served either for attaching the blocks to lifting machines or for moving blocks in the quarry,” he tells George Dvorsky at Gizmodo. “My reexamination concludes that the grooves served for lifting and testify to the first experiments with lifting architectural blocks in Greek history.”"

"Using ropes and replica stones, Pierattini experimented with placing some stones himself. What he found is that the grooves not only allow for lifting, but also help wedge the blocks into place. “With heavy stone blocks and high friction between stone surfaces, this was a highly problematic step of construction that in later times would require sets of purpose-made holes for using metal levers,” he tells Dvorsky.The grooves could have allowed the builders to lower the stones onto the walls, roll them into place using rollers, lever them up to remove the rollers, then extract the ropes from under the blocks without lifting them back up.Prior to the use of these machines, it was believed the Greeks, like many other cultures including the Egyptians, used ramps made of dirt or mudbricks to put stones into place. The first archaeological indication that a true crane was being used dates to temples from 515 B.C. that show distinctive marks where lifting tongs were used to put stones into place.So why did the crane develop in Greece, when many other cultures were also building incredibly complex monuments and temples? Unlike kingdoms like Egypt or Assyria, which had large masses of unskilled labor that could be used to break their backs constructing ramps, the Greeks relied on small teams of professional builders for their projects. That specialization led to innovations in design and more efficient machines like the use of cranes."

"A 2,800-year-old inscribed stone altar, found within a Moabite sanctuary in the ancient city of Ataroth in Jordan, may shed light on an ancient biblical war. The altar bears two inscriptions. The words are in the Moabite language and script, while the numerals in the inscriptions are in Hieratic (an Egyptian writing system). The altar appears to date to a time after Mesha, king of Moab, successfully rebelled against the Kingdom of Israel and conquered Ataroth (sometimes spelled Atarot), a city that the Kingdom of Israel had controlled. By this time, Israel had broke in two with a northern kingdom that retained the name Israel and a southern kingdom called Judah. The Hebrew Bible mentions the rebellion, saying that before Mesha rebelled, Moab had to give Israel a yearly tribute of thousands of lambs and a vast amount of ram wool. The rebellion is also described in the so-called Mesha stelediscovered in 1868 in Dhiban, Jordan, which claims that Mesha conquered Ataroth and killed many of the city's inhabitants. "

"One of the two inscriptions written on the altar appears to describe bronze that was plundered after the capture of Ataroth. "One might speculate that quantities of bronze looted from the conquered city of [Ataroth] at some later date were presented as an offering at the shrine and recorded on this altar," the researchers wrote in the journal article.The second inscription on the altar is fragmentary and harder to understand. Part of it appears to say (in translation) that "4,000 foreign men were scattered and abandoned in great number," while another part of the inscription mentions "the desolate city." "

"The inscribed altar provides confirmation that the Moabites succeeded in taking over Ataroth, said study co-author Christopher Rollston, a professor of northwest Semitic languages and literatures at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The altar also shows that, 2,800 years ago, the Moabites had skilled scribes who used their own script. The inscriptions on the altar "are the earliest evidence we have so far for a distinctive Moabite script," Rollston told Live Science, noting that the inscription discovered in 1868 used the Hebrew script to write the Moabite language. "We often talk about the sophistication of the scribal education of ancient Israel, and rightfully so, [but the inscriptions on the altar show] that ancient Moab had some gifted scribes as well," Rollston said. "
]]>Angelahttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39171-Proof-of-the-Moabite-rebellion-against-IsraelAncient Greek musichttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39161-Ancient-Greek-music?goto=newpost
Sat, 31 Aug 2019 14:13:36 GMTSee:https://aeon.co/videos/music-was-ubi...tually-sounded

"Music was ubiquitous in Ancient Greece. Now we can hear how it actually sounded

Much of what we think of as Ancient Greek poetry, including Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey,was composed to be sung, frequently with the accompaniment of musical instruments. And while the Greeks left modern classicists many indications that music was omnipresent in society – from vases decorated with lyres, to melodic notation preserved on stone – the precise character and contours of the music has long been considered irreproducible. However, the UK Classicist and classical musician Armand D’Angour has spent years endeavouring to stitch the mysterious sounds of Ancient Greek music back together from large and small hints left behind. In 2017, his work culminated in a unique performance at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, intended to recreate the sounds of Greek music dating as far back as Homer’s era – roughly 700 BCE. This short documentary details the extraordinary research and musical expertise that made the concert possible, revealing remarkable sounds once thought lost to time. To learn more about what music sounded like in Ancient Greece, read D’Angour’s Aeon idea."

There's also a nice video where you can hear it.
]]>Angelahttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39161-Ancient-Greek-musicTrade in Northwestern Europe during the Bronze Agehttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39153-Trade-in-Northwestern-Europe-during-the-Bronze-Age?goto=newpost
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 15:16:00 GMTSo, perhaps the old mantra that there was only gift exchange going on is incorrect.

"People in England were using balance weights and scales to measure the value of materials as early as the late second and early first millennia BC. This is what Professor Lorenz Rahmstorf, scientist at the University of Göttingen and project manager of the ERC "Weight and Value" project, has discovered. He compared Middle and Late Bronze Age gold objects from the British Isles and Northern France and found that they were based on the same unit of weight. This confirmed the hypothesis of the research team of the project that there was already expertise in using standard weights and measures in many regions of Europe at that time. The results were published in the journal Antiquity."
]]>Angelahttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39153-Trade-in-Northwestern-Europe-during-the-Bronze-AgeMerovingian sarcophagus foundhttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39147-Merovingian-sarcophagus-found?goto=newpost
Thu, 29 Aug 2019 14:30:54 GMTSee:https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogs...kMeXdCuhhhA.97

"A seventh-century sarcophagus containing the well-preserved remains of an elderly woman with arthritis has been found in Cahors, south-western France, while the area was being dug up to be redeveloped."

"The site was discovered in July near St Bartholomew’s church on the same grounds where historians believe there is a monastery founded by the Merovingian royal official Didier of Cahors in the seventh century."
]]>Angelahttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39147-Merovingian-sarcophagus-foundNorthern Italy in the Roman Era.https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39142-Northern-Italy-in-the-Roman-Era?goto=newpost
Wed, 28 Aug 2019 20:16:03 GMTThese first posts are copies of posts which appeared in the Italian genetics thread here.
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/37513-Population-structure-in-Italy-using-ancient-and-modern-samples/page27
I left the originals there, but wanted to collect them on this thread, and add to it the...These first posts are copies of posts which appeared in the Italian genetics thread here. https://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...samples/page27

I left the originals there, but wanted to collect them on this thread, and add to it the non-strictly genetic development of the concept of Italia and Italians during the Roman Era.

"I'm currently reading a very recently published book called Northern Italy in the Roman World. After the collapse of the Terramare, the area south of the Po in Emilia was de-populated but not empty, and there's also archaeological evidence of movement into the hills of the Apennines. Trade routes through the Apennines with "Etruria" was long standing, so there could have been movement in that direction. As for the areas north of the Po, the author provides evidence that the settlements around the old Polada areas still existed.

Then, of course, we get to Frantesina. The "elite" burial, from the leaks, is someone "different" from the locals (although we don't know what either were really like yet), but we do know that this was a center with good links to the Baltics, and imported and then worked and traded lots of amber. Cremation also entered Italy through the northeast. When we get their samples, we'll know if this was a later migration of more steppe admixed people.

So, we have a lot of possibilities.

We also, by the way, don't really know what all the inhabitants of Northern Italy were like before the days of the Empire. There are the Celtic migrations to consider. One thing I've always emphasized and which this book emphasizes is that there not only is, but was, a lot of substructure in northern Italy, more than in southern Italy. Then there is Toscana, which is not northern, not southern, but not really "center" either."
]]>Angelahttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39142-Northern-Italy-in-the-Roman-Erahttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39137-World-s-oldest-bikini?goto=newpost
Wed, 28 Aug 2019 13:17:43 GMTMaybe, maybe not, but the best preserved one, I think. I don't know how I feel about a leather bikini bottom, though. :)

'Spanish Stonehenge' revealed: 5,000-year-old megalithic temple is exposed at the bottom of a barren reservoir after more than 50 years underwater"

"A 5,000-year-old monument has reappeared in Spain after being submerged at the bottom of a reservoir for 50 years. The megalithic site features 144 granite blocks which stand more than six-foot tall and has been dubbed 'Spanish Stonehenge'.Its similarity to the UNESCO World heritage site in Wiltshire is striking, but the Iberian version is made of smaller rocks.It was thought to be condemned to the history books in the 1960s when a Spanish general ordered the construction of a hydroelectric dam in Peraleda de la Mata, near Cáceres in Extremadura...before its rediscovery and subsequent demise, it is thought the stones would have centred around a central chamber for sun worship."

These rocks are six feet high and the ones at Stonehenge are thirty feet high, but the concept seems to be the same.
]]>Angelahttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39120-Spain-s-Stonehenge-now-visible-again-after-a-droughtDenmark-Human mobility in the 3rd and 2nd millenia BChttps://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/39104-Denmark-Human-mobility-in-the-3rd-and-2nd-millenia-BC?goto=newpost
Thu, 22 Aug 2019 14:59:37 GMTIt's from the Kristiansen, Allentoft, Sikora group

"We present results of the largest multidisciplinary human mobility investigation to date of skeletal remains from present-day Denmark encompassing the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Through a multi-analytical approach based on 88 individuals from 37 different archaeological localities in which we combine strontium isotope and radiocarbon analyses together with anthropological investigations, we explore whether there are significant changes in human mobility patterns during this period. Overall, our data suggest that mobility of people seems to have been continuous throughout the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC.However, our data also indicate a clear shift in mobility patterns from around 1600 BC onwards, with a larger variation in the geographical origin of the migrants, and potentially including more distant regions. This shift occurred during a transition period at the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age at a time when society flourished, expanded and experienced an unprecedented economic growth, suggesting that these aspects were closely related."

So, during the metal ages there was movement of people in Denmark, not just movement of goods, i.e raw materials like copper and tin.

" From 1600 BC onwards, southern Scandinavia became more closely linked to the existing European metal trade networks [4], and from 1500 BC onwards, a period of unparalleled creativity resulted in the formation of a Nordic Bronze Age style, based on stylistic influences from Mycenean and central European workshops [5]. This signaled the beginning of a period of unprecedented burial wealth between 1500–1100 BC when c. 50.000 barrows were constructed in present-day Denmark alone [6]. More than 2000 swords are known from excavated burials, and as they constitute around 10% of the total number of burials, this suggests that a much larger number of swords could have been deposited [7]. There are more Bronze Age swords in present-day Denmark than anywhere else in Europe [8]. During this period, Denmark became Europe’s richest region with respect to number and density of metal depositions [9, 10]. However, this regional development was entirely dependent on the functioning of the long-distance metal trade as revealed by studies on the potential origin of copper [11, 12]. There are no native base metal ores in present-day Denmark. Additionally, recent investigations suggest that wool, too, was traded during the Nordic Bronze Age [13], and that a number of glass beads found as grave goods came from as far away as Mesopotamia and Egypt [14]."

"Some of these studies suggested a pattern in which exogamy may have prevailed during the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker/Early Bronze Age societies, as a majority of the women investigated were of non-local origin [3, 50]. In other cases, like in the multi-isotopic investigations of skeletal remains of 264 individuals from the British Chalcolithic–Early Bronze Age, results indicated a high degree of mobility but with “little difference between male and female migration histories across Britain” [51].Another study based on investigations of the human remains (mostly of young males) excavated from the Bronze Age battlefield of Tollense (c. 1250 BC) in northern Germany, revealed that a large majority of these individuals were of non-local origin, and that they potentially originated from various places characterized by different geologies [47]. A somewhat similar case to the Tollense study may be found in the unusual Late Bronze Age cemetery of Neckarsulm in south-western Germany where only males were buried. The strontium isotope analyses conducted on individuals from this site revealed that one third of these individuals were also of non-local origin [53].Yet another recent study from southern Sweden, based on multi-isotopic analyses of 61 individuals dating from 2300–1200 BC, suggested that mobility was rather high in this region too, but no differences with respect to social status or sex of individuals investigated could be seen [49]."

"With respect to ancient DNA characterization, only a few individuals from present-day Denmark from this period have been analyzed thus far [1]. Our strontium isotope analyses encompass five of these individuals, and their overall genomic information resembles the typical Corded Ware-like gene pool, typical for northern and central Europe at this time [1]. More specifically, they all have the genomic "steppe signature" that ultimately derives from the Yamnaya-culture-related people who expanded into central and northern Europe shortly after 3000 BC [1, 2]. The Corded Ware and related cultures somehow emerged from this admixture between Yamnaya-related and the Late Neolithic population and started expanding across large parts of Central and Northern Europe. This seems to imply that the population we investigate in this study might represent a newly genetically transformed population."

"Our results indicate a change from around 1600 BC onwards, as individuals with Sr isotopic values above 0.713 start to appear in our dataset and suggest mobility. Furthermore, the large range of values (between 87Sr/86Sr = 0.713 to 0.718) represented by these individuals imply that the areas which the non-locals individuals migrated from were geographically diverse and might have included more distant regions.The shift in human mobility characterized by the expansion in diversity of areas of origin of the non-locals appears to occur parallel to the emergence of the long-distance metal trade that connected present-day Denmark to areas in, e.g., central and southern Europe as well as the British Isles e.g. [4, 5, 12]. Moreover, it appears that mobility is most evident within the group of individuals buried in barrows, compared to those in flat graves (all the nine Early Bronze Age flat graves herein investigated suggest “local” origin) (Table 2). This differs from the recent results from Scania in southern Sweden which do not seem to show differences with regards to mobility and social status [49]. This aspect attests to potential differences within the Nordic Bronze Age region."

A previous study appears to indicate that this mobility pattern, including the expansion trend with respect to the diversity of areas, continued into the Late Bronze Age (1100–500 BC) [18] as well (Fig 6). "

So, the admixture was among the elite.

"When comparing our study with other recent similar investigations within the 2nd millennium in Europe, a quite complex picture emerges what seems to include different mobility patterns depending on the areas. While in southern Sweden tooth enamel strontium isotope analyses revealed that both males and females of varying socio-economic status and wealth migrated to the area during the Nordic Bronze Age [49], other investigations in, e.g. the Lech Valley area in southern Germany, point to a high degree female mobility [48]. Yet another recent study from Northern Italy also reports mobility mostly of women in which appears to have been a patrilocal society [37].In sum, our study provides new insights into mobility during a crucial point in time at the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age. This mobility might have caused a rapid homogenization of gene pools. While it will be desirable and very relevant to discuss the genetic results more in detail with the herein presented strontium isotope results and their potential implications for Europe-wide population dynamics and mobility from particularly the “steppe” people, we consider that with only the few samples at hand (five) it would be too premature to expand on this issue at this stage. "

"BBC News reports that a 2,000-year-old collection of possible ritual objects thought to have served as women’s “good luck charms” has been discovered under a layer of volcanic material in the high-status dwelling known as Pompeii’s House of the Garden. The artifacts include scarabs, crystals, amethysts, amber, carnelian, mirrors, and glass beads engraved with images of the Roman god Dionysus and a dancing satyr. The small treasures are thought to have been kept in a wooden box whose bronze hinges have survived. Indentations in the ash layer suggest the box had been placed next to a crate or piece of furniture in the corner of what may have been a storage room. Massimo Osanna, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, said the jewels and small objects may have belonged to a servant or slave, rather than the lady of the house, since none of them were made of gold, a material favored by Pompeii’s elite. "

Stećci (singular: Stećak), are monumental medieval tombstones that lie scattered across the landscape of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are the country’s most legendary symbol. These are the tombstones of those who lived between the 11th and 15th centuries and refused to swear allegiance to any kingdom but their own or to be swayed by any influence. Instead they stayed true to themselves and to what they could find only within themselves and in Bosnia. Their most remarkable feature is their decorative motifs, many of which remain enigmatic to this day.

Today there are about 69 356 known Stećci in existence found at 3162 locations, among all recorded Stećci, relief motifs were found on fewer than 6,000 and the inscriptions on fewer than 400. Most of the Stećci are located with in the borders of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina, however they can also be found in the places where people of Bosnia an Herzegovina settled or with in the borders where Kingdom of Bosnia extended to. To put this in to perspective the number of Stećci found in Bosnia and Herzegovina is 59 593 or 85.92%, followed by parts of Croatia mainly in Dalmatia 4 447 or 6.41%, Montenegro 3 049 or 4.4% and Serbia 2 267 or 3.27%.

Coming from Bosnia myself, I wish we had a DNA database of all those buried under the stones, and be able to find out if we are related to any of them! Would be awesome to find a direct paternal ancestors for example. There are often multiple people buried under one tombstone, sometimes a father and son, so maybe there are a total of over 100.000 corpses under them. Could make for quite a big database.